


ricochet (you take your aim)

by DasWarSchonKaputt



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasWarSchonKaputt/pseuds/DasWarSchonKaputt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Inspired heavily by the video for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg">Titanium</a></i>
</p><p>In a world where those with supernatural powers -- so-called Abnorms -- are hunted by the government, Kurt Hummel's life is utterly overturned when he meets Blaine Anderson, the son of Abnorm Rights Activists and an Abnorm himself.</p><p>
  <i>There are three things in Kurt’s life, about which he is absolutely certain. First: he is in love with Blaine. Second: he and Blaine have more in common than anyone can ever find out. And, third: if anyone ever does find out, he will die.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	ricochet (you take your aim)

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings for: character death (not Kurt or Blaine), persecution, and violence.**

**then.**

There are three things in Kurt’s life, about which he is absolutely certain.

First: he is in love with Blaine.

Second: he and Blaine have more in common than anyone can ever find out.

And, third: if anyone ever does find out, he will _die_.

So, that’s why, when Blaine is outed at school, and flees the country, Kurt doesn’t follow. That’s why Kurt chokes down on the ‘ _shut the fuck up about things you know nothing about_ ’sand the ‘ _don’t even think that you can judge him_’s and the ‘ _he is twice the person you can ever hope to be_ ’s each time someone tells him that, “You couldn’t have known, Kurt,” and that, “No one saw this coming.”

Kurt did know.

Kurt saw this coming.

But Kurt _can’t leave._

Kurt has ties in Ohio, has his father, has his mother’s grave, has parts of himself that have been clawed away by Lima and stitched to the land against his will. Where the empty spaces Blaine has left behind will inevitably blend into the background, Kurt’s will be gaping fissures, and he just _can’t._

He won’t do that to his dad.

He won’t do that to the memory of his mother.

And he won’t do that to himself.

**now.**

Kurt’s fingers fly over the keypad of the phone, jamming in the number that he’s had memorised ever since Blaine handed over the cheap thing. _Pick up,_ he prays. _Pick up, pick up, pick up._

“I’m sorry but the number you have called is unavailable to take your call right now—”

It’s like all of his worst fears rolled into one, and Kurt doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now. There’s still a buzzing in his veins, whether from Aftershocks or from adrenaline he doesn’t know, and he’s itching in his skin to just do _something._

“—please leave your name and number after the beep.”

That was the thing. _If anything goes wrong, call this number. Someone will pick up._

No one’s picking up.

Kurt feels an urgent thrumming start up in his pulse. “Hey,” he says into the phone. “It’s—Kurt. I just—something happened.” He takes a deep breath, trying to push the vibrations _back._ “I think I’m going to need to leave.”

Kurt hangs up the phone, and stares down at it. There. Used. Gone. That was his safety net. _Someone will pick up._ Just—fuck.

So this is what Kurt does. He steps out of his car and places the phone in the path of one of the thick tyres, takes three steadying breaths, and then drives.

He barely hears the crunch of the phone as it’s destroyed.

**then.**

Kurt knows that it’s not a _good_ thing, the fact that he feels alert all the time now. His nerve endings twitch at such a constant rate that it feels like _background noise_ to Kurt now, and that’s – that’s _dangerous._

Maybe, _maybe,_ he might be able to turn it all off. But every time he comes close to shutting down his hyper vigilance, Kurt just _stops._ Something in him – be it survival instinct, be it subconscious desire to _harm_ – rebels against the very notion, and all Kurt has to do is picture Karofsky’s smiling face and he’s agreeing with that _something,_ and vowing to never, ever let his guard down.

All Blaine has to do to turn it all off is take Kurt’s hand.

They’re in the middle of dancing around each other – playing the spy and the spied upon – when it happens. Blaine sticks out his hand, smiling gently, and says, “My name’s Blaine.”

“Kurt,” Kurt replies, and reaches for the hand.

Then—“Oh.” The sound Blaine releases is small. “Oh.”

And then Kurt’s being dragged away by Blaine, who’s shouting out an excuse to someone – “Tell Wes that something’s come up!” – and for the first time in Kurt’s life, everything’s just _quiet._

Blaine never once lets go of Kurt’s hand all the way back up the spiral staircase, past the grand oak doors, and across the manicured front lawn of Dalton to the boarding house. When they’re sat in Blaine’s room, Kurt still mesmerised by the silence, Blaine lets go.

It doesn’t all come back at once – the slow, steady resonance of the blood and flesh and bone of Kurt – but in droplets, tiny increments.

“So,” Blaine says.

Kurt turns his hands over. “So.”

“I’m guessing this is the first time you’ve met another Abnorm,” Blaine says, and _that’s_ when everything comes back all at once.

The buzzing is harsh in Kurt’s ears, his hands clenched into fists. “I’m not an Abnorm,” Kurt says immediately.

Blaine just smiles softly. He reaches out for Kurt’s hand again, but doesn’t pursue the venture when Kurt flinches away.

“When we touched,” Blaine explains. “You experienced a dampening effect, right? The Resonance wasn’t so strong. That’s because we both have similar aptitudes.”

This time Kurt doesn’t move away when Blaine takes his hand. “It works a bit like destructive interference, if you’ve studied interference patterns in physics.”

Kurt hasn’t, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “I’ve never heard of that before.”

Blaine shrugs. “I’m not surprised. Not much of an opportunity to meet Abnorms here in the US.”

Blaine lets go of Kurt’s hand. “Wes – he’s one of the leaders of the Warblers – is probably going to kill me for missing out on our impromptu performance,” he says. “He treats these things like recruitment drives. Seriously, he has a fine career ahead of him in the marketing industry.”

“I’m not an Abnorm,” Kurt repeats, louder this time.

Blaine doesn’t push. “I am,” he says instead, open and honest.

That, really, is how Kurt falls in love with him.

**now.**

Kurt isn’t certain how much longer his house is going to be secure – his _real_ house, that is, not the room at Coach Sue’s house where he’s staying at the moment – so he needs to move _now._ He practically takes the front door off its hinges trying to get it open.

His phone pings in his pocket as he sprints up the stairs and he doesn’t even need to look at it to know what it will say.

RED ALERT: ABNORM SIGHTING AT WILLIAM MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL.

The bag is stashed at the back of Kurt’s wardrobe, behind enough last-season pairs of boots that his dad would never have found it. It contains the bare essentials – rations, a blanket, water, and money in as many currencies as Kurt could find without arousing suspicion. It won’t be enough, that much is certain, but Kurt is going to have to live.

Kurt throws the bag over his shoulder and _runs._

**then.**

The first time Kurt and Blaine kiss, it’s Blaine who makes the first move. At this point, Kurt can’t even remember the words that start it, the phrase that finally tips them over, but suddenly Blaine’s mouth is on his, and Blaine’s tongue is testing at the inside of his cheek, and it’s quiet enough in Kurt’s mind that all Kurt can hear is the heavy uptake of breath that Blaine makes as he deepens the kiss.

“Run away with me,” Blaine presses into Kurt, and Kurt just _stops._

Blaine must notice Kurt’s sudden lack of enthusiasm, because he pulls away – keeping contact with Kurt as he does so – and starts to babble. “I mean – I’m not asking – but I’m only here as a favour to my brother – and Europe is – what I mean is—” He halts, shaking his head at Kurt. “If you wanted, we could leave.”

“Run away and don’t ever look back?” Kurt asks, smiling bittersweetly.

“Yeah,” Blaine breathes. “That.”

Kurt leans forward into Blaine, touching their foreheads together. “I can’t, Blaine.” As Blaine starts to open his mouth, Kurt reiterates, “I want to, but I can’t.”

Kurt thinks he spots something akin to understanding in Blaine’s eyes. “Then I’ll stay.”

**now.**

Kurt’s car won’t start. It just _won’t._

It’s not like Kurt doesn’t take good care of his car, or that he’s negligent when it comes to maintenance, but the more he tries the ignition, desperation curling low in his gut, he realises that he’s probably fried the electrics in his panic.

Which is bad.

Very bad.

Breath stuttering as he tries to stop tears from leaking into his vision, Kurt tugs open his glove compartment. He knows the theory of this, but he would never…

He doesn’t have a choice.

Ten minutes later, Kurt has hot-wired his neighbour’s car and just drives _._

**then.**

“You’re _insane_ ,” Kurt tells Blaine emphatically as he leads him up the stairs to his room.

There’s a vague yell of, “Door open, Kurt,” from his dad downstairs. Kurt ignores it.

“Crazy in love,” Blaine dismisses with a shrug.

“ _Insane_ ,” Kurt repeats, because there’s no other way to explain this behaviour. “And you really shouldn’t have transferred for me, Blaine.”

Blaine scrunches up his nose like he’s looking for a polite way to disagree with Kurt. “I kind of did it for myself as well,” he says.

“Really,” Kurt says flatly.

“Really,” Blaine confirms. “It’s only, like, eighty per cent about you.”

“Eighty per cent.”

“Well, eighty-seven if we’re being specific,” Blaine says. “But to be fair, around eighty per cent of my _normal_ thoughts involve you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Kurt, but I’m kind of crazy about you.”

Kurt nods. “Oh, I’ve noticed all right.”

Blaine pushes open the door to Kurt’s room and settles on the bed as Kurt busies himself with putting some music on. Once their conversation is heavily drowned out by the dulcet tones of Lady Gaga telling them that _Russian roulette is not the same without a gun,_ Blaine’s face turns serious.

“You said at school you wanted to talk,” he says smoothly.

Kurt settles down on the bed next to him. He threads their fingers together. “I’m thinking about telling my dad.”

Blaine’s silent for a long time. Then, “Okay.”

Kurt draws in on himself. “Should I?” he asks.

The sound of Blaine pushing all the air out of his lungs floods Kurt’s senses. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Blaine eventually says. “But honestly? I wouldn’t. I was lucky, Kurt. I was born to Abnorm Rights activists – there was never _any_ doubt that they were going to support me – but, and I’m not saying your dad won’t be them, but…”

Kurt’s shoulder’s slump. “You can never know.”

Blaine nods. “I know your dad was cool about you being gay, Kurt,” he says. “It just isn’t the same thing, though. A lot of people over here view being an Abnorm as a treatable illness, and there’s no guarantee that he wouldn’t just send you straight into the hands of the Antibodies.”

The Abnormal Terror Investigation Body – colloquially known as the Antibodies – are a prime feature in Kurt’s worst nightmares. He’s heard horror stories – never in person, _God,_ never in person – about Abnorms that have been cornered and taken away, or just plain shot upon sight. Before he met Blaine, they were just rumours to him.

Afterwards, they became the sole reason that nobody could know. _Nobody._

“If I told him,” Kurt says. “ _If,_ and it went badly – you would get me out, right?”

Blaine doesn’t even hesitate. “Of course.”

**now.**

The impact is blinding. Kurt can feel the metal crunch around him, the breath knocked out of him as he slams forward into his seat belt. He didn’t see the car coming – and that must have been the point, Kurt realises – didn’t even notice its approach until it was smashing into the side of his Navigator, sending him spiralling off the road.

Still gasping past the pain, Kurt twists his arm around the seat, fingers grappling with empty air as he tries to secure them around the handle of his backpack. Blood rushes in his ears, and Kurt can feel the Resonance crackling beneath his skin.

Kurt lets go.

The backpack smacks heavily into his hand. He closes his fingers around it, kicks himself up in his seat, and levers himself out of the car.

And then he runs.

**then.**

_“Dad,”_ Kurt had started, because that was how all of their talks started. _“I have something I need to tell you.”_

 _A heart attack,_ is how they start now. _We don’t know when he’ll wake up_ , is how they go on. _We’re doing everything we can,_ is how they end.

Kurt wraps his arms around his knees, and tries not to choke on the guilt.

He did this.

_He almost killed his father._

It didn’t start off badly, Kurt thinks. They’d been calm, even, facing each other like equals.

Then Kurt had lost his nerve, and the familiar second pulse had started dancing beneath his skin. And Blaine hadn’t been there, and there was nothing for Kurt to hold on to, and his father had reached out, and without meaning to, Kurt had _let go._

And then his dad was on the floor, and Kurt couldn’t feel his pulse.

And now Kurt is sat outside of a hospital room, suffocating in open air, unsure if he’s ever going to see his dad awake again. He doesn’t trust the tenuous hold he has on the thrumming to text on his phone without accidentally shorting out the electrics, but he needs Blaine here.

Someone’s already called Finn and Carole, and if Kurt loses it in front of…

_He needs Blaine. Now._

**now.**

He can hear them behind him, thrashing through the undergrowth and tries to ignore the way that adrenaline spikes through him at each new sound. Footfalls heavy, Kurt pushes hard against the forest floor, crashing between trees, breaths heavy, muscles burning.

His lungs are aching, but he just _can’t stop._ It’s fight or flight and Kurt is many things – Abnormal, _brave,_ a feeble body held together by a rare thread of indomitable strength – but he is not a fighter.

So he runs.

And runs.

And runs.

He’ll have to stop eventually, he knows. He’ll probably get caught eventually.

But Kurt knows that he’s not going to allow himself to die with the knowledge that he didn’t do everything he could to live.

Kurt Hummel is a survivor, so he draws more air into his lungs even as they protest in agony, and he just _runs._

**then.**

Blaine sinks into the chair next to Kurt, reaching out for his boyfriend’s hand automatically. Kurt feels himself relax into the contact.

“So,” Blaine murmurs, “how is he?”

Kurt shrugs minutely. “He’s awake,” he says. “Doesn’t have a clue what happened, which I suppose is for the best.”

“ _Kurt_ ,” Blaine starts.

“You were right, Blaine,” Kurt interrupts him. “I shouldn’t have tried to tell him.”

“ _Kurt_ —”

“I _hurt_ him, Blaine,” Kurt says forcefully.

Blaine tenses under Kurt’s touch. “Kurt, you _can’t_.”

“Blaine—”

Blaine pulls Kurt around so that they’re facing each other. “No, Kurt, you _can’t_ ,” he says. “I know you feel like you need to face justice for what happened but it _wasn’t your fault_.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything.

“Kurt, it _wasn’t your fault_ ,” Blaine repeats. “Turning yourself over to the Antibodies wouldn’t be justice, Kurt, it would be _suicide_.”

Kurt swallows down on the words that threaten to burst out of his mouth.

Blaine sighs, moving his free hand up to caress across Kurt’s cheekbones. “I love you, Kurt,” he says, like it’s enough – like it’ll somehow bracket Kurt in, stop him from walking away.

Kurt presses their lips together.

It kind of is.

**now.**

Kurt’s legs give way after three miles of solid sprinting. He just crumples onto the forest floor, too exhausted and too desperate to care about mud or dignity.

So this is how it all ends, Kurt thinks. Not with a bang, but with a whimper, with a boy shrinking in on himself, and facing a firing squad of one. A gunshot deep in the woods, a body abandoned in the trees.

A nameless kid. A horror story that is thought of as a rumour.

This is how it ends, and none of it will be remembered. He was wrong, so wrong. The holes he will leave in Lima will be forgotten, and his face will become just another stock photo, another statistic.

As abnormal as he is, Kurt isn’t special.

Kurt looks down the barrel of the gun, looks past that to the face of his killer. Remember me, he thinks. No one else will.

The gun fires.

**then.**

Kurt’s letting Blaine escort him to class by the hand when the jock body-checks him, slamming into a row of lockers. Blaine is in front of him in an instant, and when Kurt nods his assurances that he’s okay, he turns to the jock.

“What the hell is you problem?” Blaine spits angrily. Kurt can see him curling his hands into fists.

The jock snarls. “You talking to me, Fairy Boy?”

“Do you see any other mentally deficient PSAs against steroid usage?” Blaine asks. “You can back the _fuck_ off.”

“Or what?” the jock barks. “You’ll sprinkle me with pixie dust?”

It’s Blaine who throws the first punch. He doesn’t, however, throw the second one – straight to Blaine’s jaw – or the third one – to Blaine’s solar plexus, leaving him wheezing – or the fourth one.

Kurt’s attempts to pull them apart – pull the jock off Blaine – end with his back thumping into the lockers, a bruise already starting to form, and Blaine—

Blaine isn’t fighting back anymore.

Kurt can’t tell if it’s because Blaine can’t, or because he won’t, but it’s slowly killing Kurt to watch. It’s killing Kurt to watch everyone else watching, and every hit that Blaine takes feels like it’s pounding into Kurt too.

“Stop,” Kurt calls weakly. “Stop.”

 _Slam._ Blaine’s head bashes against the hard floor. _Slam._ Again. _Slam._ Again.

“Stop!”

 _Slam._ Again. _Slam._ Again.

“ _STOP!_ ”

Suddenly there’s a growing roar in Kurt’s heart, and Blaine’s skin starts to crackle. _Slam._ Blaine lets the Resonance go.

 _A supernova_ , one scientist had described the phenomenon. _Limitless potential for destruction,_ said another. Kurt looks at it now and thinks _tempest._

The jock is crumpled against the wall, and Blaine is standing on shaky legs, blood dripping from the open cut on his forehead. Bodies have been thrown around like they’re nothing more than sheets of paper lost on the wind.

Blaine runs.

Kurt barely hesitates as he pushes himself to his feet, and then he sprints after him.

**now.**

The Antibodies soldier slumps to the ground.

Behind him, Cooper Anderson stands solidly, gun still raised, eyebrows pinched in concentration. Slowly lowering the weapon, Cooper approaches Kurt.

“I got your call,” Cooper says.

Kurt nods dumbly, unable to get his breathing under control long enough to formulate a proper response.

Logically, he supposes that it makes sense – that the number Blaine gave Kurt was Cooper’s. Blaine has dropped countless hints that his family are involved with some of the more dangerous parts of the Abnorm Rights Movement, and Cooper is one of the only members of his family to live permanently in America…

But it’s one thing to _suspect_ that your boyfriend’s brother smuggles people out of America for a living; it’s another entirely to watch him gun down a soldier to save your life.

Cooper offers Kurt a hand. “Let’s get you out of here,” he says.

Kurt nods again. He takes the hand.

**then.**

Blaine slams the bathroom door shut behind them, holding a trembling hand over the lock until it starts to meld shut. “You need to tell everyone you had no idea about me,” Blaine tells him seriously. “And you tried to plea with me to go into treatment peacefully, but I wouldn’t agree.”

Kurt nods, breath caught in his throat.

“We struggled,” Blaine says, “but I burnt your wrist and I ran.”

Kurt nods again.

“Hey,” Blaine says. “Hey, hey.” Kurt looks up to him. “I love you,” and, “You have the number I gave you, right? Follow me when you can.”

“How are you going to get out?” Kurt eventually asks.

“I have contacts,” is Blaine’s ambiguous reply. “People who do this for a living. Get us out of countries like this.”

Kurt kisses him then, long and hard, because he doesn’t know the words for what he’s feeling, and he’s about to lose the person who is his one tether to himself, and he doesn’t know what to do about that.

So Kurt says, “I love you,” and he kisses Blaine again, and again.

Blaine pulls back. “I’m going to burn your wrist now,” he says lowly.

Kurt kisses him one last time, and then nods.

It’s not the goodbye he wanted and it’s not a goodbye he would have chosen, but it’s the one he remembers.

**now.**

Blaine types rapidly on his laptop, breaking only to take a sip of his lukewarm coffee. The Wi-Fi in his parent’s apartment is down, so he’s been using this café as his base of operations for the past week. Today, his clock-in time was somewhere around two hours ago, and since then he’s been managing his blog and trying not to think about his time in America.

It’s after he’s finished answering the question ‘How long have you known you were different?’ that he feels someone tap him on the shoulder.

“ _Entschuldigen Sie, bitte_ ,” a voice says from behind him. Blaine turns around to smile at the diminutive barista stood there. She points over to the counter of the café. “ _Es gibt einen Mann_ —”

Blaine doesn’t hear her finish.

Because Kurt is stood at the counter of the café, hair perfect as ever, smiling shyly, and because Blaine doesn’t even pause to close his laptop lid as he pushes out of his chair, and because Blaine is running to Kurt.

Because Kurt seals his lips over Blaine’s and says, “I love you.”

Because Blaine is in Munich, and it’s been two months, and he finally has Kurt back again.

Because Blaine never has to let him go again.

**then.**

Dead. He’s dead. Kurt’s dad is _dead._

Kurt feels like he’s been torn in two and stitched hastily back together, and he can feel the itch building up between his hands.

Dead.

Kurt killed his dad.

_It’s not your fault._

Oh but it is. It is.

Dead.

“Dude, are you—”

A hand on his shoulder. _Blaine._ Let it go. Release.

“—Ow! Dude, your skin just burnt me! What the—”

Kurt snaps his head up, and feels the intensity of the gaze that Finn is levelling at him. It’s not a disappointment, not really, that all it takes for Kurt to know that Finn won’t keep this secret is the look on his sort-of-brother’s face.

“Are you an Abnorm?”

That’s the question that seals the deal. That’s the question that changes his life.

“Yes,” and he runs.

**later.**

There are three things in Kurt’s life, about which he is absolutely certain.

First: he is in love with Blaine.

Second: he is an Abnorm.

And, third: he is _proud_ of everything he is and loves.

So, when he’s invited to pose for the front of _Vogue_ – to become the first openly Abnormal designer featured on the cover – Kurt doesn’t say no. And when they ask him about Blaine and about Blaine’s book – an autobiographical romp titled _Conforming To The Norm: The Modern Day Witch Hunts_ – he doesn’t deflect, and he doesn’t stutter over his response.

Sometimes, Kurt stumbles into thinking back to the world he left behind in Lima, about his father buried next to his mother, about the friendships he can never get back. It’s odd, he thinks, how he finds himself missing the idea more than the actuality, or maybe that makes sense.

This is his life now, though.

And he would not trade it for any other potentiality.

 

In three hours’ time, Blaine Anderson will get down on one knee and ask Kurt Hummel for permission to spend the rest of his life with him.

And, in three hours’ time, Kurt Hummel will say yes.


End file.
